JACK by Adrienne Wilder Read Free Book Online Page B

out the extra apple to Grom. “I’ll give this back to you if you’ll let Noah play checkers with me.”
    He stopped chewing and stared at the apple. “But his lessons are important.”
    “I know, but it’s only once.”
    “For the apple?”
    “Yes.”
    “For the whole apple?”
    I put it down on his tray.
    “You drive a hard bargain, Just Jack. A very hard bargain indeed. I shall allow it. One day, no lessons.” He made a shooing motion with his sandwich. “You are dismissed.”
    With everyone eating lunch, the dayroom was almost empty. Noah found a checker board and enough milk caps to make a game. We sat in the corner next to a window facing the parking lot. There were a lot of cars down there. I watched people come and go wondering who they were and where they came from. Most of them wore uniforms like the nurses and orderlies but there were a few who didn’t. Did they have family here? Or were they former patients set free into the world.
    Another arm of the hospital stretched out on the other side of the parking lot. It was constructed of gray stone with dark slits for windows and connected to the section I was in by a long tubular bridge. Most of the people coming in and out of the doors over there wore regular clothes. On occasion an ambulance would pull around to the back or a nurse would push someone out in a wheelchair to a waiting car parked next to the curb.
    Noah rapped on the table. The checkers were all in place. There wasn’t enough of one color or the other, so mine were right-side up and his were right-side down. I pulled out the plastic lawn chair and sat across from him. He waved a hand at me.
    “You want me to go first?” I said.
    He nodded.
    I looked at the board and made my first move. Then he made his. The game was pretty short and Noah won.
    I sat back. “I guess I’m not very good at this, huh?”
    He laughed but there was no sound. His eyes were so bright and his face so serene it seemed wrong not to hear his joy. Noah set up the board again.
    “Why do you whisper?”
    He hand froze hovering over a black square, milk cap pinched between his thumb and first finger.
    “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.” I don’t know what it was I saw in his eyes, pain, fear, guilt? When he didn’t continue setting up the board I did it for him. Then I made a move. He didn’t. “Please, Noah, I’m sorry.”
    He stared at the board and after a very long time he pushed one of the pieces to another square. I moved one of mine. His lips moved and I realized he was saying something to me.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
    He leaned closer and so did I. Almost nose to nose, I could count the freckles on his cheeks.
    His words were barely a sigh. “Because I scream.”

Chapter Five
     
    My new room had a window. It was small, narrow, and too far up to really see out. If I stood on the bed and pulled myself up over edge of the sill, I could see the thick line of trees on the horizon. Bars made it difficult to enjoy the view. But there was one good thing about my new room. It was right next door to Noah’s. We no longer had to meet in the dayroom to play checkers.
    The first thing I did with my newfound privacy was to tear a strip off my sheet. The cotton fabric didn’t work as well as the Ace bandage. I worried someone might notice the knot under my arm, but the shirt was baggy so I hoped it wouldn’t show.
    My talks with Dr. Chance happened three days a week. They would get canceled if someone had to have an emergency session. It didn’t happen as often as you’d think. Throwing bed pans or starting fights was not grounds for Dr. Chance’s attention.
    I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t taking any of the pills now and the noise at night would keep me up. I’d wander the halls watching the night nurse and orderlies go about their business. Since I had been moved to C wing, I could go to the dayroom whenever I wanted. In there the old black and white TV was always on, but there was